


I Saw Your Face (in a criminal sketch)

by mosylu



Series: I'm Coming After You [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Killer Frost - Freeform, Parallel Storytelling, Rogue Cisco, except not, heisty good fun, sexy sexy enemies, vibe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4753937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who is Cisco Ramon?</p>
<p>Her boss thinks he's a two bit criminal. His brother thinks he's a kid in over his head. Caitlin Snow thinks they're both wrong. </p>
<p>She hopes they're both wrong.</p>
<p>Takes place simultaneously with One of These Days (I'll end up tracking you down)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Saw Your Face (in a criminal sketch)

**Author's Note:**

> (A/N) Because I like playing with time, this takes place parallel to the previous Rogue!Cisco story, One of These Days (I'll end up tracking you down). Some scenes repeat, told from a different perspective.

_Thursday afternoon - 20 hours before the heist_

Joe looked up from the coffee machine. “Caitlin? A moment?” He jerked his head at his office door.

“Yessir,” she said, following him back in.

He set his mug on his desk. He took in her running clothes, her hair up in a ponytail, and said, “Out for some exercise?”

She shrugged. “Thought I’d take a new route.”

He nodded a little. “See if you could run into Vibe?”

“I need to know what he knows.”

“You mean, if he knows we’ve got his brother in protective custody now.” Joe rubbed his temples. “Explain that to me again. And dumb it down for your lieutenant, huh?”

“The Rogues took Dante Ramon in order to force his brother into working with him. Without his brother, they have no hold over Cisco. Which is why they’re not going to tell him he’s gone.”

She’d worked her tail off trying to track down Dante Ramon, working forward through his kidnapping, backward from the movements of the Rogues and their known associates, and finally arriving in the middle, at an apartment on the west side that they’d raided early that morning. She’d gone home and taken a six-hour nap, then come back and started thinking about her next step.

Which was to figure out how to safely extricate Cisco.

Joe held up a finger. “ _If_ that’s all true. _If_ Cisco Ramon wasn’t working with the Rogues of his own free will all along.”

Caitlin gritted his teeth. “Yes, sir, _if._ And, following that premise to its reasonable conclusion, if Cisco finds out we rescued his brother, then he’s got no reason to stay. He’ll go. And they’ll go after him. You know Leonard Snart.”

“He’s a vindictive little shit, it’s true,” Joe acknowledged.

She leaned forward. “Finding Dante Ramon was a coup. He’s been gone for eighteen months and the case was stone-cold. But getting his brother out of the Rogues’ clutches is my priority. We need a situation where we can pull Cisco out, and control the Rogues at the same time.”

“Again, with the if, Caitlin. You’re gambling pretty high that he’s on the side of the angels.”

Caitlin swallowed. _I know he’s good because of the way he smiled at me._ She couldn’t say that. It was ridiculous. No matter how much it felt like the truth.

She fell back on her old friends, verifiable facts. “He got in trouble before he joined up with the Rogues. I’m not denying that. But it wasn’t Rogue kind of trouble. No felony dings. Barely misdemeanors. Stupid stuff. Noise complaints, traffic tickets. A couple of bar fights where he was actually trying to calm everybody down.”

“He wouldn’t be the first aimless kid who got started down the wrong path and found out he enjoyed it.”

“He said that if we rescued his brother, he’d switch sides. He’s a metahuman. More than that, he’s a tech genius. Do you know what it would mean, having him on our side? And not fighting against us?”

“I could say I’m say I’m Donald Trump, doesn’t make it true.”

“Dante Ramon gave us testimony about the way he was treated.”

“Dante Ramon also said he’s only ever talked to his brother on the phone in all the time. And he also said they’ve never gotten along especially well.”

“Why would Cisco be a part of that?”

“I don’t know." Joe held up his hand. "And I see you icing over, so I’m going to remind you right now, this is my job, finding the holes, especially when my most level-headed and skeptical officer’s suddenly pulling a 180 on her nemesis.”

She looked away, at the coffee mug. The steam had stopped curling up from the surface of the liquid, and the surface itself looked a little … solid. She bit her lip and throttled herself back. “I realize I’ve never been a fan of Vibe before.”

“He’s always annoyed you, as I recall.”

“Yes.”

“In fact, I remember a few colorful terms you had for him.”

“I see where you’re headed, Joe, and I know. I’ve made my opinion clear. But I, um. I got new information, and well, I redrew my conclusions.”

“Just because his brother got kidnapped doesn’t make Cisco Ramon an angel.”

“I know, but it did make me re-examine his actions.” She leaned forward, hands fisted on her knees. “He’s never killed anyone - well, none of the Rogues have,” she admitted. “But also, he’s never hurt anyone. Not even a bruise, not even a scratch.”

“There are plenty of folks in this city who’ve never hurt anybody.”

“Joe,” she said. “Joe, that’s not something _I’ve_ managed to avoid.”

Joe’s eyes lifted to hers, filled with understanding. The emergence of Caitlin’s powers had been decidedly unpretty.

“He’s not you,” he said. “It’s not the same thing.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have control. Neither does he. I mean, he can control his powers, and he does, that’s obvious, but still. The Rogues make him do things that - ”

Joe held up a hand. “I understand how you’re starting to feel softer toward him. I do. But Snow - ”

Caitlin almost flinched. Her last name, when they were usually more congenial in the close-knit Meta Division, was a clear signal that Joe was going to be speaking as Lieutenant West now.

“You need to keep your distance, with Cisco Ramon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your eyes open.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep your head clear.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay.” He sat back. “You’re a good cop, Caitlin. Smart and dispassionate and you’ve got a good gut. That’s why I’ve given you a lot of leash on this. I just don’t want you hanging yourself with it, you got me?”

“I won’t,” she promised, and hoped she wouldn’t break it.

* * *

She’d meant to walk out the door, but she found herself detouring to the cells.

_Not_ that Dante Ramon was a prisoner. Absolutely not. It was just the most secure place to keep him while he was a guest of Star Labs.

When she knocked, he was scowling at his hand, spread out on the table. More accurately, he was scowling at the place where his pinky had been before Leonard Snart had lopped it off.

When she’d asked him why, he’d said, “They just told me to blame my brother.”

Cisco’s older brother was the kind of handsome that had always been handsome, and had always known it. Even now, with lines carved around his eyes and mouth and the threads of premature grey in his dark hair, he was the kind of man she would have looked twice at, if she’d met him in a bar or a coffee shop.

But every time she looked at him, Caitlin compared him to his brother and found him wanting.

He looked up. “Come to let me out?”

“You’re in protective custody, Mr. Ramon. But if you really want to put your brother in jeopardy, ruin an ongoing investigation, and put yourself in danger from the people who kidnapped you in the first place, by all means. Walk out that door.”

Dante folded his hands together and scowled at her. “You always mention my brother first. What’s your interest in him anyway?”

Cisco must not have told his family about his abilities, or at least he hadn’t before Dante had been kidnapped. And the Rogues must not have mentioned it either, or Dante never would have been asking what Meta Division’s interest in his brother was.

In general, they treated meta powers like sexuality - it was the individual’s right to decide who to tell. So she said, “You must know he’s a tech genius.”

“What, all his little toys?”

“His little toys have formed the basis of the Rogues’ destructive threat.”

Dante rubbed his eyebrow. “Typical Cisco. He never thinks.”

“He knows perfectly well what the Rogues do with his gadgets. He’s doing it for you.” She shook her head. “You don’t know him at all, do you?”

“Only all his life. I think I know him pretty well. Look, Officer Snow.”

“Doctor,” she said coldly.

His eyes flicked. “What you have to understand is, my brother’s a kid. He believes in things like true love and that people can basically be trusted.”

“If he still does after spending eighteen months with the Rogues, that’s not childish, that’s amazing.”

“Yeah. The Rogues. I hear all this talk from you about how important he is, how dangerous, but you gotta know. That’s not him. My brother got suckered into something, and he’s in way over his head.”

“I realize that. We’re trying to get him out of that situation. That’s what all this is for.” She folded her arms. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe that if you can put somebody behind bars and literally spike the Rogues’ guns at the same time, that’ll work out nicely for you, won’t it? Read real good in all the papers.”

“I don’t want him behind bars. I want him safe.” _I want him with me._

He met her eyes. “I don’t trust you, Caitlin Snow. My brother might, but like I said, he’s a kid. And I’m not.”

“Lucky for me,” she said coolly, “your opinion doesn’t matter.”

* * *

She went running through the neighborhood that had been on Cisco Ramon’s driver’s license, the night she’d run him down in a nightclub, after he’d danced with her and made her smile until his smile had suddenly seemed all too familiar.

The next day, he’d told her all about his brother, and then escaped custody.

Leonard Snart was a savvy thinker - plans within plans. Was it possible Cisco Ramon and his brother were all part of some convoluted plan?

She shook her head hard. Joe’s doubts were getting to her.

Her scowl must have frightened off most of the scuzz, because she didn’t get many kissy noises or ‘hey baby’s as she worked her way through the neighborhood. She turned a corner and spotted him, coming out of a convenience store with a bag stuck in his pocket and wires trailing from his ears. Her scowl melted away.

“Hey,” she called out.

He didn’t look around. There was a bounce in his step, a shimmy, kind of, and she realized he was listening to something so loud on his earbuds that he couldn’t hear her.

She shook her head and crossed the road, then jogged up until she was several feet behind him. She drew heat out of the air around him.

Okay. A little more slowly than she maybe had to. But he was still dancing his way down the sidewalk and frankly, from an aesthetic perspective? The view from behind was … not bad.

He paused, registering the drop in temperature, then turned, his face alight.

In spite of herself, Caitlin felt her stomach go all squishy. He always looked at her like that, even under the mask, even when they were about to fight each other.

Why was she only just realizing this? She’d always read it as taunting or sarcastic, when in actuality it was more like, _Oh, hey! It’s you! I love seeing you. Hi, you._

“Hey, there, Officer Frost. Or are we on good enough terms I can call you Killer?”

His eyes sparkled with the joke of this back-and-forthing. The flirtiness of it. She had to bite the inside of her lip to stop herself from smiling back.

“You’re not on terms of calling me anything. What are you up to, Vibe?”

They snarked at each other, loudly, making sure people who knew them could see Killer Frost and Vibe still on opposite sides. She found her breath coming faster than it had during her run. How was fighting with Cisco Ramon so much like flirting?

She spotted the flicker in his eyes, much more visible when he wasn’t wearing a mask, and was only half surprised when he wheeled and ran. She ran after him. He skidded through his turn into an alley.

She started to ice over a puddle when he leapt over it. She scowled and redoubled her pace. Was he actually running from her?

But then he tripped, theatrically, arms wheeling, and she was able to close the distance and shove him up against the brick wall. Just in case, she wrapped ice shackles around his wrist cuffs and froze them to the wall.

He panted, grinning at her, the light of devilry in his eyes.

She folded her arms to stop herself from groping him, because she was doing her job and she did not have time to reconsider her own stance on bondage, with Cisco Ramon at her mercy.

“I think you’re getting slower, Vibe,” she said, trying not to pant too audibly.

“I think you’re getting faster,” he retorted. “Or meaner. You feel meaner? This shackling thing is new.”

It was. She’d been practicing. She sniffed. “I can fill your mouth with ice too if you want.”

“Oh, would you? Because it’s going to be a scorcher tonight.”

She was trying to come up with a witty rejoinder - okay, this banter thing was _hard_ when you stopped pretending that you completely loathed and despised your opponent - when the A/C unit over their heads roared to life.

He dropped the facade. “Have you found my brother?”

She hesitated.

There were lines of tiredness in his face, not just shadows of a sleepless night, but of a long period of stress and worry. The smile always covered it up. Another thing she’d always missed.

_Yes, yes, I have. Everything’s going to be okay._

But she knew her instincts were on point. He _would_ just take off, he _would_ think he could take care of himself. And he _would_ be astonished when Leonard Snart caught up with him, turned him into a pretzel, and fed him to a wood chipper for daring to slip his leash.

But she couldn’t just tell him no. Not with that pleading look in his eyes. “We have leads,” she said, and watched his eyes light, very briefly. “What are the Rogues planning? We know something’s happening soon.”

It was a shot in the dark, the very vaguest of feigned knowledge, cop-to-snitch’s favorite gambit because it so often worked.

He shrugged one shoulder as if trying to bat that away. “Leads to where? Is he okay?”

“Heist, Cisco. Focus.”

He twitched ever so slightly at the word _heist_ , and she thought, _Yahtzee!_ There was something coming up, something big. _Just let it be soon._

“I am focused,” he tossed back. “And how did I become your snitch anyway?”

“When you made me a deal,” she reminded him.

“I’m not yours yet.”

“I told you. We have leads. But I need something from you. Think of it as demonstrating good faith.”

“Do you know what my brother’s life would be worth if Len thought I was working with the cops? It could be measured in microseconds.”

His brother was always his first concern. He never mentioned anything about himself. She wanted to grab his shirt and yell that he mattered, too. She clamped down on the urge and said evenly, “I won’t let that happen. Trust me.”

_Please. Trust me._

_Please. Be trustworthy._

“How stupid would I be, to clue you in on crime I’m helping out with?”

She almost growled with frustration. “Then something you’re not involved with. You must hear things.”

His eyes drifted away from her, then back. “Might be good to go by Third and Mayhew tomorrow.”

The downtown branch of the Great Western Bank. Adrenaline stabbed at the base of her neck, jittering through her muscles. But - _tomorrow._ “What time?”

He hesitated again, and she gritted her teeth. But he finally said,  "About noon.“

"Okay. Be ready.”

“For what?”

The A/C clonked off, and their sonic cover was gone, and they were out of time. They’d been talking far too long already. She said loudly, “What did you say to me?”

“I - uh - ”

She narrowed her eyes, willing him to play along.

His mouth curled up in a lascivious smirk. “C'mon, baby, you know you want to.”

All right, fair enough.

She pretended to punch him in the stomach, and he had the wit to grunt and act as if it had made contact. She turned on her heel, yelling over her shoulder, “Watch that mouth, Vibe, or that’s where my fist is going next.”

As she rounded the corner, she wondered briefly if she should have shattered the ice shackles before she left. But it would look better this way.

_Tomorrow,_ pounded in her head along with her footsteps. _Tomorrow._

If they could snag the Rogues in the act, they’d be in custody and Cisco would be safe and -

And, well. That was all the further she was going to think about.

She waited until she was out of the neighborhood, jogging through the park, quiet and alone. Just to be sure, she cast her heat sense out and found only squirrels and birds and a couple of homeless women asleep on benches, not overheated or too cold, so she felt all right about leaving them alone.

Then she stopped and dialed.

“Joe?” she asked breathlessly. Ugh. She should go running more. Joe was a demon about the department’s physical fitness requirements.

“Caitlin? You find him?”

“Yes.” She checked the time. No matter how late he stayed every other night of the week, Joe was punctual about clocking out at six on Thursdays. “Did you leave yet?”

“I was about to - ” he said, as if he could tell his plans were about to change.

“Turn back around,” she said. “And grab Barry. And get one of the interns to call for Chinese. And … tell Iris I’ll make it up to her.”

A little pause. Joe knew that she knew the sanctity of Thursday night dinner, and knew likewise that she’d never hijack it for less than an emergency. Then a sigh. “You’d better.”

* * *

_Friday 11 am - 1 hour before the heist_

“Any questions?” Caitlin looked around the room. “All right. Let’s move out.”

Joe came up next to her, looking around the room of plainclothes policemen tucking away their notepads and getting to their feet, murmuring about the possibility of snagging the Rogues. “You got a good group here, Snow. And a good plan.”

She nodded, accepting his praise silently. No matter his doubts about Cisco Ramon, he and Barry had been here until the wee hours of this morning, helping her put it together. That was why he led Meta Division.

She strode across the room, high heels clicking, and found Barry. “When it’s all done, I’ll notify the Ramons, and you go and get Cisco.”

“I know,” Barry said.

“You’ve got the address?”

“Yes, Mom, I have his address. Also I packed my lunch and remembered my homework.”

She blushed. “Sorry.” She worried at her shawl’s fringe. “Do you think I should’ve told him I already had his brother? When I saw him last night?”

“Ummmm,” Barry said vaguely, rubbing his hand over his hair so it stuck up in crazy tufts.

“Bar-ry.”

“This is your op, Caitlin. You made a call and you had good reasons for it.”

“But you don’t agree with it.”

He shrugged. “I guess maybe I’d want to know. If I were in his place.”

* * *

_Great Western Bank - ten minutes before the heist_

As she stood in line like anybody else waiting to talk to a teller, Caitlin’s stomach jittered with nerves. But years of cultivating an ice-queen facade even before it had become quite so literal kept her face smooth and bland.

Len was here; she’d seen him. Which meant Mick Rory and Lisa Snart were probably somewhere around too. She hit the video recorder on her phone and used it to scan the bank. Her fingers tingled with anticipation.

She glanced down to check the video and almost dropped the phone. Cisco was standing about ten feet away from her.

She swallowed and focused on looking casual. She wanted to storm over and shove him bodily out of the bank. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be safely out of the way!

She fussed with her shawl, tugging it down over her arms as if guarding against the A/C, and used the motion to look around at him. He gave her the tiniest, tightest smile imaginable. His eyes were miserable.

_He never thinks,_ Dante had said of his brother, and maybe it had been true when they were kids, but it wasn’t now.

She turned away, breathing in shallow breaths, trying desperately to hold down her cold powers. She needed to talk to him, but she couldn’t just grab him out of the line. That would be a little obvious.

Instead, she pretended to make a phone call.

“Hey. It’s me,” she said, trying to sound breezy. It mostly came out asthmatic. “Where are you?” She paused. “Where?” She groaned, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Why on God’s green earth, Frankie, would you go when you knew who else would be there?”  She looked at him surreptitiously, willing him to hear her. “You need to leave. Go back home.”

He gave his head a little shake. His lips were white. But he wasn’t moving.

If he participated in the robbery, he would go down with the rest of the Rogues. She wouldn’t be able to help him. There were too many officers in this bank, too many witnesses. The net she’d thrown for the Rogues would catch him, too.

If he participated.

She knew what he would do if he realized Dante was safe.

She was - pretty sure she knew what he would do.

She swallowed and made her voice light, exasperated. Oh, this crazy kid that she was on the phone with. “Okay, before you go do - ” She sighed, her brain scrambling. His mom’s name, his mom’s name. What was it?  " - whatever it is you’re going to do, I called to let you know that Paulina found her puppy.“

She saw the information hit him. He went still, his thumbs locked above his phone’s screen, his face rigid.

"Yeah, he’s fine. Lost a toe off his front paw, but otherwise perfectly okay. So you can stop worrying. I know how tender-hearted you are. Okay? I’ll do what I can.” In spite of herself, some of what she really felt leaked through into her voice. “I know you have no reason to, but just trust me, okay?”

She nodded, as if the person on the other end had said something, and pretended to end the call. She snuck another look at Cisco and almost cried out.

One of the Rogues was standing behind him.

She knew who he was - Mick Rory, Heatwave. He looked bigger and meaner than ever, next to Cisco, his hand clamped around the back of the slighter man’s neck.

She glanced back to check on Len. He’d been next. Please let him still be waiting - but he was walking up to the teller.

There was no time. She had to let him fend for himself, at least for the next few moments. She had to do her job. That was what she was here for. The public. Protecting and serving all of it, not one man.

Whatever Cisco chose to do now … would be his choice.

She shifted her weight forward, ready to pull her badge from her pocket and an ice dagger from the air.

A man screamed, and she whirled, but it wasn’t Cisco on the ground. It was Mick.

Cisco was airborne, throwing himself feet-first at Len, teeth bared like a wolf off the leash. They went down in a heap, and Cisco shouted, “Hit the alarm, do it now!” at the teller.

Belatedly, Caitlin shouted, “Police, everybody down!”

Gold splattered against the teller window three inches above Cisco’s head, and Caitlin whipped around, plugging Lisa Snart’s gun with ice and shackling her to a table. She’d never done it from that distance before. Never.

She caught her breath and scanned the room, checking her team. Hassan had his gun trained on Lisa, who bared her teeth. Tillie was cuffing Mick, and Lacey was covering them both. She took a few steps through the dazed and cowering civilians toward Len, because Cisco couldn’t sit on him forever.

Cisco said something indistinct to Len, who snarled. The daggers shot from Caitlin’s hands before she consciously thought about it, nailing him down before he could throw Cisco off. As a precaution, she shackled him, too.

Wow, she really liked doing that.

She pulled out her badge, reminding herself that she was a cop and there were ways to do these things, and said to Cisco, “I’ll take it from here.”

He looked at the shackles and the ice daggers, then up at her with a smile that warmed her from the inside out. “Looks like you already have.”

* * *

_Half an hour after the heist_

As usual, the aftermath promised to stretch out for hours. Interviewing, CSIs, witness statements. Barry sometimes said that they should have gone vigilante and that way they could have left all this stuff for the regular cops to handle.

He didn’t say it in front of Joe, though.

Lacey paused by her just as she ended yet another call. “Say, Caitlin, who was that guy? The one who took two Rogues down in under five seconds? I’m not even into guys and I thought that was hot. I also thought for sure he was with them.”

“He was,” Caitlin said. “He’s not anymore.”

“Oh, so that explains why he’s giving you sex eyes from over there.”

“He - what?” Caitlin whipped her head around, but Cisco was watching the busyness around him, somewhat nonplussed. “No, he’s not.”

“He was.” Lacey shook her head. “You ask me, he’d volunteer to be your personal rookie in a heartbeat.”

Caitlin smiled a little, remembering him saying, _I’m all yours._ “Hey, Lace?”

“Mmm?”

“Your friend over there still needs to be interviewed.”

Lacey checked. The woman she’d been talking nail art and Pinterest to, as part of her cover, was leaning up against the side of the bank, looking a little wild-eyed. “Oh. Sure.”

“And then probably comforted. And given someone’s phone number.”

Lacey went as pink as her yoga pants. “I - wasn’t - ”

Caitlin waved her away, smiling. She was the last person at this whole crime scene to give someone crap about where they found someone attractive.

Well. Maybe not the _last_ person.

She checked. Cisco seemed to be watching them string up crime-scene tape. How did they keep missing each other’s eyes?

She called a number she’d entered into her phone weeks ago. “Mrs. Ramon?”

“Yes?”

“This is Caitlin Snow of the CCPD.”

The woman on the other end of the line caught her breath. “Dante,” she said. “You have a lead? To my son?”

“We found him, Mrs. Ramon. He’s safe.”

Her gasp ended in a little cry. Listening to the joy of Cisco’s family, Caitlin thought, _Soon you’ll know everything that his brother did to keep him that way._

She called Star Labs next and gave instructions for Dante to be released from protective custody and escorted to the family home.

That done, she looked back toward Cisco.

He was talking to Iris and Joe - or rather, watching a little baffled as Iris and Joe bickered. She willed him to look around so they could exchange smiles.

But he didn’t.

Barry whooshed in and muttered to her that all of Len’s known associates had suddenly and unaccountably lost their phones and gotten locked in their houses, _wow,_ what a _coincidence_ , and she smiled as he whooshed off again.

When she looked back, Cisco was on the phone. He looked relieved. Maybe it was his mom, telling him they’d found Dante. Maybe he’d hang up and come over to her with that enormous beaming smile -

A patrolman got her attention and she had to handle his issue.

It went like that for the next twenty minutes, until, as she stood talking with Joe and Barry, she checked over her shoulder and saw that he was gone.

Her stomach fell. She pressed her lips together and turned back to her lieutenant and her partner. Joe looked annoyed. Barry looked sympathetic.

It would be okay, she told herself. She’d get ahold of him later. He wasn’t supposed to leave but she wasn’t surprised he had. He’d spent a long time being an outlaw. He would be all right. Len was in custody, and in no position to pull strings.

They’d talk soon.

Would he be mad about Dante? Probably. Probably he would. She’d have to apologize. 

* * *

_Three hours after the heist_

Caitlin picked up the phone and dialed the number again, and listened to the voicemail, again. It was like a tic. Now that she could use the number she’d dug up for Cisco Ramon’s cell phone without worrying that the Rogues would be able to see it somehow, she was overusing it.

He was just hanging out with his brother, she told herself. Spending time with his family, now that they were all together again.

She wished he’d hung around long enough to say goodbye, at least. Maybe thanks? Maybe, “so I’ll be in touch about my half of the deal. The part where I’m yours.”

He’d meant _yours_ in the sense of switching sides, changing allegiances. Working for Meta Division. He hadn’t meant _yours_ , property of Caitlin Snow.

She found herself fiddling with her phone again, and put it down. She had paperwork to finish. A lot of paperwork. A large-scale op and all these arrests and witness statements and - _so much_ paperwork.

And anyway, by now he would have found out that she’d kept Dante a secret from him. Maybe that was why he wasn’t picking up the phone, if he knew she was on the other end.

Joe caught her attention. “Caitlin. My office. Now.”

He looked so serious that she leapt to her feet and followed him without a question.

Barry was already there, and he looked just as serious as Joe. Caitlin’s stomach knotted up. “What is it?”

“The Rogues were booked at the station, then transported to Iron Heights. In transport, the road was blocked by a tree.”

“Ambush,” Barry said immediately.

“They’re in the wind,” Joe confirmed. He looked at Caitlin.

“No,” she snarled. “No. He did not.”

“Caitlin,” Barry said.

“Why would he do that? He took them out in the bank. Basically all we did was stand around goggling. They mutilated his brother, they coerced him, they - and now you stand there saying he broke them out? Why would he do that? They’ve got no hold on him anymore, he’s got no reason to help them!”

“Caitlin!” Barry burst out. “Nobody’s saying that.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“We’re not,” Joe said, “and stand down, Snow. The tree that went down had marks from a crosscut saw around the base. Ever brought down a tree like that? Takes for-damn-ever. Your boy Vibe wouldn’t have to do that. He’d just boom the shit out of the road or the wheels or some rocks and move on with his day.”

Caitlin swallowed. “I’m sorry for any insubordination,” she said.

“Accepted. But my concern is, we’ve discussed Snart and his vindictiveness. Do you know where Ramon is right now?”

“I haven’t talked to him since the bank.” Her hands went cold. She balled them into fists, knowing without looking that mist swirled around them as emotions chewed at her control over her powers.

“Find him,” Joe said. “Bare, we need roadblocks. Trains, highways - ”

Caitlin left him barking orders and rushed back to her desk and her phone. Nothing. No texts, no missed calls. She dialed one more time, but barely listened to the start of his voicemail before she hung up and called the Ramon family home. No answer there either.

She grabbed her keys and took off for the parking lot. At her car, she fumbled with them, dropped them, picked them up. She leaned against her door, pressing her fingers into her eyes. _Calm down. Calm down. You’ll find him. He’s at home with his family. They’re just not answering. Why would they?_

A hand grabbed her jacket and yanked. Automatically, she snatched the wrist and let her guard drop, just enough so her skin chilled. The man attached to the hand flinched, feeling the chill creep through skin and muscle, reaching for the bone.

She throttled the cold back before it could get there and looked down at the hand twisted in her jacket. Wide-palmed, square-tipped fingers with neat, short nails and the pinky missing.

She looked up into Dante Ramon’s face and said coolly, “I recommend that you let me go, Mr. Ramon. I recommend that very strongly.”

He let go.

She did, too, straightening her dress. “Where’s Cisco?”

“Where’s - ? Damn, you have some gall,” he said, rubbing at his wrist. “Like you don’t have him in one of those cells back there. Like this whole thing wasn’t entrapment from beginning to end.”

Ice crawled up her spine. “We don’t have anybody in our cells.”

“Oh yeah? Then where the fuck is my brother?”

FINIS


End file.
